Importing Air Pollution? Evidence from China's Plastic Waste Imports

Kerstin Unfried () and Feicheng Wang ()
Additional contact information
Kerstin Unfried: University of Göttingen
Feicheng Wang: University of Groningen

No 15218, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Plastic waste trade has grown considerably in the last decades and has caused severe environmental problems in recipient countries. As the largest recipient, China has permanently banned the imports of plastic waste since 2018. This paper examines the causal effect of plastic waste imports on air pollution by exploiting China's experience of importing plastic waste and the recent import ban. Combining data on plastic waste imports with PM2.5 data at the city level for the years 2000-2011, we find that plastic waste imports increased PM2.5 density significantly. This effect is linked to expanded production in the waste processing sector and an increased number of incineration. To evaluate the impact of the import ban on air quality, we employ daily data on air pollution between 2015 and 2020. Our difference-in-differences results show that affected cities, relative to other cities, experienced a significant improvement in air quality following the ban. These findings suggest potential environmental gains from banning plastic waste imports in other countries.

Keywords: plastic waste trade; waste import ban; air pollution; PM2.5; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F18 F64 Q53 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2022-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-ene, nep-env, nep-int and nep-res
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2024, 125, 102996

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp15218.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15218

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().